When YOUR Bank Fails, Don’t Walk … Run!
adUnit = document.getElementById("google-ads-BgRI");
google_ad_client = "ca-pub-1897954795849722";
adUnit = document.getElementById("google-ads-BgRI");
adWidth = adUnit.offsetWidth;
if ( adWidth >= 999999 ) {
/* GETTING THE FIRST IF OUT OF THE WAY */
} else {
google_ad_slot = "0";
adUnit.style.display = "none";
}
So. The US economy is just fine. The post-recession 2010 Dodd-Frank legislation has cured all. Banks have lots of cash. Congress is your friend and that certain-to-pass Tax Cut and Jobs bill will finally allow you, your family and America to … MAGA.
Really?!
“I’m sorry, Sir. We are unable to cash this check,” were the ominous words delivered to me by a fresh-faced, none-too-friendly, Wells Fargo Bank manager. He had just kept me waiting ten minutes while in consultation about my requested transaction. Returning to his cubicle he sat down quickly, now looking at me intently through narrowed eyes.
Three feet away, between us and in front of him, were three forms of my personal identification face up. However, he gazed down glowering at two personal checks also laying before him, written to me by a client and drawn on his bank. Not being a “Wells” customer I had expected a shake-down, hence the multiple forms of ID.
These two checks totaled a seemingly paltry sum of almost US$8,000.00. Not expecting this much difficulty I insisted on a reason, to which he now looked up from considering the two checks and replied, “I’m sorry, but the bank does not have sufficient funds on-hand to cash these checks.”
Really?!
Naturally, like the majority of incorrectly indoctrinated US bank depositors I assumed that, as is traditional with banks, this one would have lots and lots of cash.
Au Contraire.
Unapologetically he informed me that he was “sorry” but he could only cash one of the checks at this time. Both checks were for about the same amount. I inquired if this was a new bank policy and was told that the bank simply did not have enough cash on hand, and, “no”, I could not come back at the end of the day after the bank had received the day’s cash deposits. However, if I went to a larger Wells branch they might be able to handle both checks.
This rather unique news seemed worthy of delving into further, so I declined his opening offer and left with my two onerous withdrawals. Being away from home, I decided to wait and stop by my home town’s main Wells Fargo branch office. For anyone following the factual and very dire condition of the world’s economy and its bank’s magnificent set of past, pending, future – and unpunished – financial crimes, my sojourn into the realm of Kafka would become a very cautionary tale.
Oh, those evil banks. The shadowy corporatist denizens of New York, London, and Brussels, all guilty of a staggering set of ever-expanding frauds couched in the beneficent language of greedy short-term materialistic gain. Financial “crimes of the decade,” like the Savings and Loan meltdown, the Enron Collapse, and the Great Recession are nowadays reported almost monthly. With metered US justice amounting only to a monetary fine for the offending criminal bank – usually a small fraction of the money it previously stole, hypothecated, leveraged or manipulated – and with criminal prosecution no longer a possibility, these criminals continue to shovel trillions – not billions – into off-shore, non-tax paying accounts of the already uber-rich. There is never enough.
Just in time for Christmas, Americans received the “Tax Cut and Jobs Bill 2017” that, of course, contains not one word about jobs, but sounds so good to the ignorant who are still transfixed on the false mantra of MAGA.
LIBOR, FOREX, COMEX, which used high-speed program securities trading combined with insider manipulation, were the first serious examples of recent bank frauds. Since the Great Recession magically became the Great Recovery, Wachovia and HSBC banks plead guilty to laundering money for Mexican drug cartels dictators, and terrorists. Wells Fargo and Bank of America were also guilty of defrauding tens of thousands of homeowners of the properties during the “robo-signing” scandal; that was a scandal … until Wells and BA paid the mordida and all returned to business as usual. Example: In July 2017 it was revealed that more than 800,000 customers who had taken out car loans with Wells Fargo were charged for auto insurance they did not need. Barely a month later, Wells was forced to disclose that the number of bogus accounts that had been created was actually 3.5 million, a nearly 70 percent increase over the bank’s initial estimate. Why not? When the predictable result will be a small percentage fine … and keep the rest. Now that’s MAGA!
If the individual retail – Mom and Pop – investor actually had a choice of where to put their cash money, then no one with better than a fifth-grade education would put a penny into the major stock markets. However, the goal of the many banking manipulations have had one goal: eliminate financial investment choices to one – stocks.
One choice, gold and silver, the previous historical champion alternative in preserving one’s wealth, was deliberately eliminated from short-term, private investment. The banks, issued and sold massive amounts of worthless certificate gold and derivative gold (not bullion), and the same in silver, at a current ratio of 272 paper instruments to one measly ounce of real physical gold. All this has been leveraged against real precious metals, and next used to influence the price of gold – down – by selling huge tranches of these ostensibly worthless gold contracts (1 contract=100 paper ounces) within seconds when the spot price of gold begins to rise. The banks have done this so often that gold has not risen to levels it would likely reach without this manipulation. This has driven massive liquidity that would have gone to precious metals towards stocks. This is likely evidenced by the advent of the meteoric rise in the price of Bitcoin, one that – like gold – escapes the bank’s control and a super-inflated stock market.
Similarly, thanks to the economic trickery that has been three rounds of Quantitative Easing, the other two conventional options – the bond market and personal bank savings accounts – have been manipulated to also produce a very low rate of return, driving these cash funds to stocks. It is this entire package of criminality – providing no other place for liquidity to go – that has performed as the plot to push a surging world stock market to obscene levels that have no basis in factually based accounting or economic methods … or history.
Banks Are Ready for the Next Crash – You’re Not!
The banks know the next crash is coming. Like 2007, they have set in motion the next great(est) recession. Predator banks know that most people, thanks to the aforementioned financial control, media omission and an inferior education system, are “stupid,” especially regarding the nuances of financial fraud. As the majority of Americans and Europeans live in the illusion that their financial institutions will protect their savings, they miss their bank’s greedy preparations for the next stock market crash slithering through the halls of their Parliament or Congress. This already completed legislation states in plain English, and the language of endemic corruption, that your bank intends to steal your money directly from your savings account. And … your government will let them do this to you.
30,000 pages make up the Dodd-Frank post-recession legislation, authored by the banks in the aftermath of the Great Recession. The Dodd-Frank legislation was touted as eliminating the massive bail-outs the US gave virtually every ill-defined too-big-to-fail worldwide bank and US corporation in 2008-9. In reality, Dodd-Frank was as much a fraud against Americans as LIBOR or COMEX manipulation, et al.
Title II of the media-acclaimed 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act provides the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) with new powers and methods to again guarantee – first and foremost – the massively leveraged derivatives trade once this massive leverage plummets as it did with AIG in 2007-09. However, that collapse was singular. The next will include all banking sectors.
The banks’ paid-for politicians made sure a post-crash Congress did not regulate derivatives via Dodd-Frank, and thereby encouraged a further increase in this financial casino betting, despite it being the root cause of the original problem. Thanks to Dodd-Frank and its predecessor, the 2005 Bankruptcy Act, Congress made sure these new fraudulent bets on stock market manipulation would surely be paid. But, not to worry; there would be no more “Bail-Outs.” Next time, these banks would use their depositors’ savings, including yours. Meet: the “Bail-In.”
Really?!
All Americans recall the massive “Bail-Outs” of 2007-9 and how their corporately controlled Federal Reserve Bank and an equally controlled US Congress threw several trillions of US taxpayer dollars at US banks, dozens of foreign banks, and any corporation with enough political pull to be defined as “Too Big To Fail” (TBTF). In the aftermath a year later, the banks understood that Americans and European citizens had lost enthusiasm for any future government Bail-Out, most preferring instead that any institution suffering self-inflicted financial duress should enjoy the fruits of their crimes next time, via the reality of formal bankruptcy proceedings.
The will or financial safety of the public is, of course, no concern to criminal corporations, and so easily circumvented via Congress and the president. So, the banksters have redefined their criminality using two newly defined methods, both re-branded to be far more palatable to the public.
Currently,“Too Big to Fail,” has a very fraudulent and elitist connotation just like, “Bail-Out.” To millions across the world who have lost their homes, pension funds, retirement plans, and dreams, this decade-old moniker for financial oppression and fraud has now been conveniently re-branded. The bailed-out TBTF banks now have a far more magnificent definition: TBTFs are now, “Globally Active, Systemically Important, Financial Institutions” (G-SIFI).
This sounds so much better.
But, “Bail-Out”? No… No. Would you not prefer a “Bail-In”? Not if you know the details.“Bail-Outs,” may have also lost their flavor but in the new world of the G-SIFI, the next one is actually just a “Bail-In,” away.
Yes, Bail-Ins, the new “systemically” correct term for publicly guaranteed bank fraud are already named as such in new national policies and laws, appearing in multiple countries. These finance laws, such as Dodd-Frank and its pending UK and European Union version, make upcoming Bail-Ins legal. These Bail-Ins allow failing G-SIFI banks to legally convert the funds of “unsecured creditors” (that’s you) into bank capital (that’s them). This includes include “secured” creditors, like state and local government funds.
Really?!
With this in mind, I entered the main branch of Wells Fargo. The two checks in hand. On the way in I was greeted warmly, one after the other, by three more fresh-faced and eager protégés, all smartly uniformed to match the Wells décor, and who proffered, “Good morning, Sir!” again, and again…and again. Certainly, these little fish were not in possession of authority enough to cash my mammoth checks, so I asked for bigger game, the Branch Manager.
Thus, I explained my plight to a very lovely lass who predicted she, “would be glad to help me.”
“Cheryl,” patiently explained that I had come to the right place and she would be glad to cash both checks. Regarding my previous polite banking experience, she admitted that it was indeed bank policy to have limits on the availability of cash for withdrawals and that different branches had different limits. This was the main branch so my request here was meritorious. Further, she admitted that whatever daily cash coming into the branches in the form of deposits was not available for withdrawal, but was sent from the main branch for daily accounting at a central point common to all area Wells bank branches. Only a prescribed amount of cash was provided with each bank for daily customer cash withdrawals.
Really?!
“A couple of times your current request,” was her cautious response to my question about her branch’s limits on check cashing. Not to be put-off, I asked about a hypothetical US$25,000 check. She admitted this would be beyond her branches authority. “But,” she smiled, “Today, you’ve come to the right place.”
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-1470694951173-5'); });
(deployads = window.deployads || ).push({});
